As I make plans for my last year at the college, I’m unusually sanguine about the unknowns. They make me wonder at the depression and anxiety-fighting qualities of virtue. The parallels of the nine months of college and the gestation of a fetus are self-evident. But I had no idea the outcome would be the birth of healthy twins—fortitude and patience.
Virtues are learning realized over long periods of time, from internalizing concepts, not just memorizing the facts behind them. The importance of this kind of knowledge is essential to good living, but the danger to college students is that the significance of virtue-building is easily lost in the preferred, esteem-trashing system of letter grading.
I believe much of what is wrong about our society is due to a reliance on passing only those who learn predominantly from good recall versus curiosity or high intelligence. Some Camosun instructors get the crazy wisdom of true learning. My advice? If your instructor won’t allow notes or books at an exam, you might want to consider looking for a more deeply delved course in that subject.
The list of virtues stems from an old-fashioned ethics system of which (thankfully) much has been lost or discarded, nonetheless many are worthy gems we might want to consider mining to support us in this terrifying, potentially brave new world.
Refusing to even minimally explore patience was my downfall in adult life. This lack is why I have travelled widely, but have no savings, wasted 23 years of marriage figuring out I should have risked some loneliness, why I was always bored (but never am now), and was susceptible to self-medicating.
As I grow in fortitude, in confidence, now hovering over my keyboard—fingers and brain working more and more as one—each seemingly insurmountable assignment barrier is systematically conquered.
Someone said patience is the art of finding something useful to do while we wait. Really, that’s good advice.
And fortitude might then be considered the ability to appreciate the results of that waiting as the fruits of our best efforts, regardless of the mark attached to them.